How to win in CTF

[Brista]

First off, I'd like to point out that people are using the same language about Shammys as they are pallys.  Phrases like "overwhelming majority" and "typical pubbie".  Brista, you didn't even bother with the fig leaf of "well, a good shammy is better then a bad druid" or any such stuff.

While I'm not offended, if you guys are going to go after MJ for phrasing his posts like that, then you need to edit your own.

To quote myself:

I find shaman often quite frustrating to play with if I'm on my druid or my priest

Typical pubbie shaman is enhancement windfury shock searing totem zerg monster. They only look to do damage. Their mana pool is empty 10 seconds into the fight. If my priest is there and I run out of mana I can guarantee the shaman will be empty. Shamans are great for groups that blitz through instances to the last boss then wipe and ask "why didn't you heal me?"

I particularly dislike Searing Totem when used by bad players.

Seems to me I made it clear I'm talking about poor players not generalising that the class is for noobs in the way the phrase "noob bubble" does

I really don't understand your issue

[Treesh]

Whoa Rinnhart, that's getting rather personal. As much as I disagree with Mongo's opinion about pallies and the way he chooses to state it, at least he's not really resorting to personal attacks. I don't want to sound like a mod here, but can we lay off the personal attacks? The discussion is heated enough without adding more fuel to the fire, unnecessarily.

[lemekim]

In a futile attempt to get thread back anywhere near the subject, I would like to provide some info get some input of how people deal with paladins (including what paladins themselves fear most). We can do same thing for shamans as well =)

First of all, while most people know that you can "bubble" out of silence (or almost anything), but not many know that you can't "bubble" out of school-silencing type of effect. So if you counterspell a paladin while they are doing nothing, it will not prevent them from using divinse shield. But if you counterspell them midheal, you get 10 seconds in which you can try to kill them, while all holy spells (including divine shield) go through 10 second cooldown.

Second, and this is of course more common knowledge, since divine shield costs mana, you can mana burn/drain paladins so that they cannot use it at all.

Of course neither method is too viable, but it's nice to know. A quick silence on an escorting paladin combined with a quick tagret switch can finish them off before most other healers can react.

Paladins do have one weakness, and it's their inability to cure curses (neither can shamans, but thats a different subject!). Curse of Tongues with Mortal Strike will usually make their healing quite ineffective. Curse of Shadows with some AE happy mage can quickly deliver huge amount of damage (Especially a mage with Ephemeral Power Trinket and Arcane Power Talent). A druid or a smart mage can cure those curses, but both a druid and a mage that cure curses in a fight are a rare sight.

And of course you have to remember that Divine Shield is on a 5 minute cooldown, so in WSG, if you keep tabs on who used their shield recently, you can usually finish off those paladins faster then usual (of course still not as fast as a priest for example).

From what I've seen on the field, usually the most effective paladins are the ones that put on a shield, and take on the role of a plated healer/dispeler rather then try to contribute fairly weak DPS. After all, cleanse is better then purge in any fights above 1v1 (PvE and PvP), if not for any other reason than the fact that in groups people focus on one target, which is usually the only one that really needs purging, while the whole group needs cleansing from negative effects (ranging from sheep and fear to crippling poison and frost nova).

I hope this helps!

[Quark]

First of all, while most people know that you can "bubble" out of silence (or almost anything), but not many know that you can't "bubble" out of school-silencing type of effect. So if you counterspell a paladin while they are doing nothing, it will not prevent them from using divinse shield. But if you counterspell them midheal, you get 10 seconds in which you can try to kill them, while all holy spells (including divine shield) go through 10 second cooldown.
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That would be great for Kick, which is generally not "Improved", but Counterspell is almost always improved. There's a bug with Improved Counterspell: you no longer get the 10 sec school cooldown, only the 4 second spell global. So mages most likely get no help from this.

[lemekim]

That would be great for Kick, which is generally not "Improved", but Counterspell is almost always improved.  There's a bug with Improved Counterspell: you no longer get the 10 sec school cooldown, only the 4 second spell global.  So mages most likely get no help from this.
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I heard something about that, but some people said it worked fine, so I wasn't sure. It might have to do with silence effect replacing the school effect, and could be a bug with all similar spells (largely unnoticed because neither rogues nor warriors usually get improved kick/shield bash). Still, if that is the case, there are a few other options available besides Kick (5 second magic school silence) - Spell Lock (8 seconds), Shield Bash (6 seconds), Feral Charge (4 sec), Pummel (4 sec).

[Treesh]

I heard something about that, but some people said it worked fine, so I wasn't sure. It might have to do with silence effect replacing the school effect, and could be a bug with all similar spells (largely unnoticed because neither rogues nor warriors usually get improved kick/shield bash). Still, if that is the case, there are a few other options available besides Kick (5 second magic school silence) - Spell Lock (8 seconds), Shield Bash (6 seconds), Feral Charge (4 sec), Pummel (4 sec).
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Eth's got Improved Kick and sometimes it seems like it does the school and the silence, sometimes it just does the silence even though I kicked the caster while they were casting. I'll have to duel Taranna some more and see what the deal is. ;) And of course, that won't be a full test because who knows what silly things Blizzard hides between PvP, PvE and duels. ;)

I wonder if anyone here has a Horde caster on stormrage and is on Teamspeak too so we can really see what the deal is.

[Kevin]

I heard something about that, but some people said it worked fine, so I wasn't sure. It might have to do with silence effect replacing the school effect, and could be a bug with all similar spells (largely unnoticed because neither rogues nor warriors usually get improved kick/shield bash). Still, if that is the case, there are a few other options available besides Kick (5 second magic school silence) - Spell Lock (8 seconds), Shield Bash (6 seconds), Feral Charge (4 sec), Pummel (4 sec).
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I'm not sure on improved shield bash either. I do know that I can "silence" special abilities with it so it's well worth it for me and is a great tool for when I want to move a mob somewhere as well. But sometimes it seems that I'm shutting the school down for 6 seconds on top of the 3 seconds of silence. Other times it just seems to do the silence. I'll have to test that more too. It can be hard to tell with mobs.

[KiloVictor]

I've always maintained that Blizzard can take away my Divine shield when they give me the damage mitigation to make up for it. :)

Otherwise I have recommended making it be as powerful as a Priest's bubble. That should still last long enough for me to get a heal off in emergencies. It probably shouldn't still be purgeable unless they up either the damage we do or the damage we absorb in contrast to Shamans. Offensive hybrid versus defensive hybrid.
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What do you see as the limitations of the invulnebubble vs. the priest shield?

My priest's shield soaks up just under 1K HP before it's gone, can't be recast for 15 seconds even with talents, can be dispelled easily, and takes a pretty good chunk of mana to cast. I'm certainly not saying it's useless, but it seems to have a fair bit of limitation built into it. For the sake of argument, call it "balanced". :)

The invulnerability of Divine Shield looks really good by comparison, along with the guaranteed 12 sec duration. But I've never played the class to know much about it.

I will agree with MJ on one thing: Paladins can cause *huge* amounts of mental anguish among Horde players with the bubble-'n-bomb Consecration runs. The pissing and moaning that you hear in chat after a Pally gets away untouched is unbelievable. Probably the strongest point of a Pally in PvP is their ability to incite rage and frustration in the Horde players. :)

Kv

[oldmandennis]

To quote myself:
Seems to me I made it clear I'm talking about poor players not generalising that the class is for noobs in the way the phrase "noob bubble" does

I really don't understand your issue
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Well, it seems to me that it's the same thing. Jerry apologised and said he was joking when he said "All Pally are n00bs", but you continued to jump on him for the statement he stuck by which was paladins attract many n00bs, and are a n00b friendly class.

Closer to the topic at hand, the "bubble run" tatic, especially in AV is actually more then a pain in the butt. It's easy for alliance players to say "well just ignore him", but even a week AoE in the middle of the pack is a substanital amount of damage, and often he takes several hits while bubbled, before people realize to switch targets. Those wasted hits can easily add up to several thosand damage, damage that would be better applied to the mages and locks winding up AoE's behind him.

[Brista]

but you continued to jump on him for the statement he stuck by which was paladins attract many n00bs, and are a n00b friendly class.

No I didn't

Please re-read the thread carefully before continuing this line of discussion, you seem to have read apples as oranges and been offended by it

Please also quote the people who are saying dreadful things that are offending you

[Tal]

What do you see as the limitations of the invulnebubble vs. the priest shield?

My priest's shield soaks up just under 1K HP before it's gone, can't be recast for 15 seconds even with talents, can be dispelled easily, and takes a pretty good chunk of mana to cast. I'm certainly not saying it's useless, but it seems to have a fair bit of limitation built into it. For the sake of argument, call it "balanced". :)

The invulnerability of Divine Shield looks really good by comparison, along with the
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Well I see Divine Shield as a means for paladins to heal at least once a fight (twice if they use BoP and are facing a melee type) to basically extend the fight. This goes long towards our role as being supremely survivable. But if they were dispellable/purgeable this isn't offset like a priest's bubble with other skills like fear to assist with getting away. If you make the skill available to dispell/purge then something will need to be given back to paladins to compensate. Not saying the shield shouldn't be dispelled or purged but our escape options are limited at best.

I do have to say that I'm not a big fan of bubbling in 1 on 1. The fights are usually too quick for me to use the skill reliably. I tend to save it for when I'm getting pounded upon while trying to heal the flag bearer. The downside to it is that I usally come out of bubble to die shortly afterwards. ;)

I will agree with MJ on one thing: Paladins can cause *huge* amounts of mental anguish among Horde players with the bubble-'n-bomb Consecration runs. The pissing and moaning that you hear in chat after a Pally gets away untouched is unbelievable. Probably the strongest point of a Pally in PvP is their ability to incite rage and frustration in the Horde players. :)

Kv
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This has never ceased to amaze me honestly. Consecration only does 384 damage over 8 seconds over a 8 yard radius. This works out to 48 damage a tick over an area that you can back out of easily at any time. Add in that I have never seen someone stand in the consecration and not be able to get a spell off and its impact isn't even in the marginal scale anymore but quickly taking the left turn at Albuquerque into nonexistant. It also amazes me that there are still paladins that do this and that the horde on your servers hasn't adapted to it. On Stormrage the better PvP'ers among mages/warlocks, druids and Shaman keep an eye out for Paladins in group combat and will either sheep/secude/entangle on the way in or will do it on the way out once your shield has popped. I'm sure on the horde side there is great cheering when they entangle a paladin steps away from safety and rip him apart. ;)

A bigger question, one that the horde seem to be ignoring in these discussions, is that how bad is the paladin class for pvp that this is their only reliable means of doing any damage to the enemy? And I really don't want to hear the healer in plate argument. Some of us signed up to be paladins to be a support character, take a few hits, heal if necessary but being up front in the thick of things. How would a priest/druid/shaman who specc'd other than healing like if they were told that the only skills they could use in Battlegrounds/PvP was to heal and nothing else?

[Tal]

Well, it seems to me that it's the same thing.  Jerry apologised and said he was joking when he said "All Pally are n00bs", but you continued to jump on him for the statement he stuck by which was paladins attract many n00bs, and are a n00b friendly class.
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I'd like to address this if I may. I've heard many people say that paladins are a n00b friendly class. I contend that any n00b can play any class in the game. Thats right. Playing World of Warcraft as a mage, priest, shaman, warrior, rogue, druid, and warlock is not harder than playing as a paladin. Once you master the basics of how combat works and the beginning skills of a class it is much the same game that everyone plays. World of Warcraft is NOT a hard game to play. Can Paladins afford to make more mistakes than other classes? Perhaps, perhaps not. It may be that most folks are playing paladins as they see them as holy knights. They are drawn to the class because they are "heroes". This doesn't make them n00bs. Wanting to fight along side the warrior in the front lines doesn't make them n00bs either - after all the class description points to them being in the thick of things. Does shielding when they take damage make them n00bs? No as I've said before we can only use the skills that Blizzard gave us. It would be nice, however, to be judged on who I am and the skills I bring to a group than the class I play. THAT is why I take exception to my class being referred to as a n00b class and that I am a n00b by extenstion.

In reality I get just as frustrated with bad paladin players as anyone else, possibly more so than non-paladin players or horde players. I've commented in chat about getting trained by a paladin who ran into the middle of a camp and dying so that the entire village then turned on me because I was fighting on the outskirts. I've also been trained by a failed sap and rogue death. By a mage's polymorph popping and the mage dying. By a priest using psychic scream in a cave. N00bs exist in the game because of how popular the game is not because of a choice at the character selection screen.

Its not much fun to be reviled simply because of what class you chose to play and popular perception of the class. Its not fun to be spit upon while riding through the Barrens just because you're playing a paladin (and I know that the person wasn't spitting because I was Alliance - I made a horde and asked the person). Or to be mocked as not having skill because its supposedly harder to play <insert class name here>. And it sucks all the more to see people you admire or are supposedly aligned in common interest (ie Lurkers) perpetuating these kind of stupid misconceptions. THAT is why folks are getting wound up over this issue.

Closer to the topic at hand, the "bubble run" tatic, especially in AV is actually more then a pain in the butt.&nbsp; It's easy for alliance players to say "well just ignore him", but even a week AoE in the middle of the pack is a substanital amount of damage, and often he takes several hits while bubbled, before people realize to switch targets.&nbsp; Those wasted hits can easily add up to several thosand damage, damage that would be better applied to the mages and locks winding up AoE's behind him.
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What? You're supposed to use strategy and think in PvP? :rolleyes: The real problem with the cheesy bubble and consecrate tactic is that when your damage is based on whether the RNG likes you that you don't have much other option for sowing discontent. After all its not like a paladin can charge in and Intimidating shout, or pyschic scream or mind control an enemy priest (unless you're an engineer) or even sheep/seduce or sap to take a important member out of the fight.

I'm fine with following the flag bearer and healing him/her, with cleansing team mates to remove polymorph and other forms of CC but unfortunately you don't earn many contribution points if you still end up losing the fight. I'd really like to have more options to contribute to the success than I currently have.

[lemekim]

How would a priest/druid/shaman who specc'd other than healing like if they were told that the only skills they could use in Battlegrounds/PvP was to heal and nothing else?
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In group PvP everyone tries to play to their strengths. Thus from the classes above, their biggest utility in group fight would still be as a healer/dispeler. A feral druid in cat form or bear form is not exactly a threat to anyone. A shadow priest is merely a mage without some of the best abilities of the mage - polymorph, AoE snare, instant AoE, and high survivability due to Ice Block/Blink. Shamans are the only a partial exception to this, since they can provide high melee DPS, but good enchanment shamans conserve mana and heal in a pinch.

A paladin can do so much more then just heal. HoJ/Repentance on that rogue that is attacking your priest, BoF to let your carrier get some distance, BoP on a mage to give them a short breather (even if it gets purged 3 seconds later). A paladin can provide more support/healing utility then a priest, while being in plate and having an invulnerability bubble. Play to that strength.

Sounds to me like you really wanted to make a Shaman Rather then a Paladin. Sometimes the class descriptions are just not accurate.

[Treesh]

Its not fun to be spit upon while riding through the Barrens just because you're playing a paladin (and I know that the person wasn't spitting because I was Alliance - I made a horde and asked the person). Or to be mocked as not having skill because its supposedly harder to play <insert class name here>. And it sucks all the more to see people you admire or are supposedly aligned in common interest (ie Lurkers) perpetuating these kind of stupid misconceptions. THAT is why folks are getting wound up over this issue.
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At least pallies generally only get spit on by horde. Gnomes get spit on and worse by both horde and alliance. About the only people (in general) who don't harrass gnomes are other gnomes. It's really interesting though the comraderie (sp?) between gnomes. Random gnomes I've met (while playing a gnome) will hug or cheer or greet other gnomes just because they are gnomes. On Cenarion Circle, there's even a gnome guild that sent out a bag and some heal pots to brand new gnomes. It was a nice little surprise for our twin warriors. Everyone else seems to irrationally hate gnomes so we just kinda cluster together and are glad to see one of our own. And this is on non RP servers too.

[Tal]

In group PvP everyone tries to play to their strengths. Thus from the classes above, their biggest utility in group fight would still be as a healer/dispeler. A feral druid in cat form or bear form is not exactly a threat to anyone. A shadow priest is merely a mage without some of the best abilities of the mage - polymorph, AoE snare, instant AoE, and high survivability due to Ice Block/Blink. Shamans are the only a partial exception to this, since they can provide high melee DPS, but good enchanment shamans conserve mana and heal in a pinch.

A paladin can do so much more then just heal. HoJ/Repentance on that rogue that is attacking your priest, BoF to let your carrier get some distance, BoP on a mage to give them a short breather (even if it gets purged 3 seconds later). A paladin can provide more support/healing utility then a priest, while being in plate and having an invulnerability bubble. Play to that strength.

Sounds to me like you really wanted to make a Shaman Rather then a Paladin. Sometimes the class descriptions are just not accurate.
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In my experience druids and priests bring much more battleground utility in battlegrounds than I do. Yes I can stun on a 60 second cool down. I can BoP every five minutes. I can heal some (not efficiently) if not molested (a good rogue will keep me from getting a heal off on someone else unless I "n00b bubble"). Any more it seems the best thing I can bring to a battleground is cleanse of bad effects and heal the flag bearer along with someone else. I'd rather be in the thick of it truthfully.

[KiloVictor]

This has never ceased to amaze me honestly. Consecration only does 384 damage over 8 seconds over a 8 yard radius. This works out to 48 damage a tick over an area that you can back out of easily at any time. Add in that I have never seen someone stand in the consecration and not be able to get a spell off and its impact isn't even in the marginal scale anymore but quickly taking the left turn at Albuquerque into nonexistant. It also amazes me that there are still paladins that do this and that the horde on your servers hasn't adapted to it. On Stormrage the better PvP'ers among mages/warlocks, druids and Shaman keep an eye out for Paladins in group combat and will either sheep/secude/entangle on the way in or will do it on the way out once your shield has popped. I'm sure on the horde side there is great cheering when they entangle a paladin steps away from safety and rip him apart. ;)

For sure the better players have counters to this as you mention, or they are smart enough to ignore it for the trivial damage that it does. But unless you're up against a fairly smart and coordinated emeny force, your bubble-'n-bomb run is sowing a lot of discord in the enemy ranks. Don't underestimate the value of that disruption, people take their eyes off all sorts of important things to chase that damn Paladin who seems to be getting away with impunity. It's very frustrating for the other side, revel in it. :)

Of course, that mental anguish that you inflict is probably the source of all the /spits you're seeing.

A bigger question, one that the horde seem to be ignoring in these discussions, is that how bad is the paladin class for pvp that this is their only reliable means of doing any damage to the enemy? And I really don't want to hear the healer in plate argument. Some of us signed up to be paladins to be a support character, take a few hits, heal if necessary but being up front in the thick of things. How would a priest/druid/shaman who specc'd other than healing like if they were told that the only skills they could use in Battlegrounds/PvP was to heal and nothing else?
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Well, if DPS is your metric, it's agreably pathetic. But disrupting the enemy lines has huge value too.

I can't speak for Druids and Shamen (Shamans?), but I can speak to the Priest experience. My theory is that the number of skills that I use is inversely proportional to the size of group that I'm in. If I'm solo, they all get used at some point. In a 5-man, I'm still doing the odd silence and SW:P in addition to healing and dispelling. Once it becomes a raid group, I'm down to Flash Heal, Dispell Magic, and the odd Prayer of Healing or maybe Greater Heal when available.

I think that's just part of group dynamics -- you eventually get forced back to a core skill, maybe two. In a group setting, my only value is in keeping others alive.

Maybe the problem is that Paladins aren't presented as "priests in plate". If they updated the class description and threw in an element of "annoy the hell outta the Horde", it might more accurately represent the play experience you're signing up for when you roll a Paladin. ;)

Kv

[Drasca]

In my experience druids and priests bring much more battleground utility in battlegrounds than I do
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I'd agree that druids do, being the best flag carriers. . . as for priests. Their main attactive feature is scream, group heal, and for shadow-Silence. You can single target heal, survive/make enemy waste resources, and cleanse.

Probably know this already, but Pallies are uber flag escorts when paired with a warrior. Sure there's pitiful damage from pally, but warriors can make up for that and survive on pally heals. Only snares prevent warriors from owning kiting enemies, and they're all removed by cleanse & BoFreedom.

2v2, that combo destroys or delays the enemy long enough for additional escorts because it takes so long to kill pally/warrior and get the flag.

There are always counters, but they don't always happen (there are times one will die no matter what, and those are moot points to argue). Delaying death is a path to victory.

[oldmandennis]

No I didn't

Please re-read the thread carefully before continuing this line of discussion, you seem to have read apples as oranges and been offended by it

Please also quote the people who are saying dreadful things that are offending you
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You are right, I was incorrect to lump you in with the people who were flaming away.

Typical pubbie shaman is enhancement windfury shock searing totem zerg monster. They only look to do damage. Their mana pool is empty 10 seconds into the fight.

Was your quote I was refering to, similar quotes about other classes seem to be flamebait around here. I'd be happy if we all agreed that we are all good players and comments about pubbies couldn't be considered personal attacks.

BTW, am I the only capped shaman around? Seems like it.

[lemekim]

In my experience druids and priests bring much more battleground utility in battlegrounds than I do. Yes I can stun on a 60 second cool down. I can BoP every five minutes. I can heal some (not efficiently) if not molested (a good rogue will keep me from getting a heal off on someone else unless I "n00b bubble"). Any more it seems the best thing I can bring to a battleground is cleanse of bad effects and heal the flag bearer along with someone else. I'd rather be in the thick of it truthfully.
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Do not underestimate cleanse. Every shaman I know would trade their purge for cleanse in a heartbeat, simply because it's so much better in groups.

Eh and what a druid can do? Unless they are a flag carrier, there are few options for them. Ok, they can heal (albeit either slower or less efficient then even paladins), and... Maybe decurse once in a while. They can root, but that usually gets dispelled fast, and the target goes immune fast anyway.

On priests, fear can be quite useful as both defensive and offensive tool. Silence is useful, but most priests do not go that far down into Shadow tree. Most everything else takes too long or uses too much mana.

A paladin is an extremely good addition to any group - a plated healer/dispeler that cannot be Crowd-Controled reliably and can at the same time prevent any of his teammates from being Crowd-Controlled?

Yea, I understand that's not what you want to be, but it's their best role. Perhaps if you reroll a Shaman you will find what you like.

[Chesspiece_face]

For sure the better players have counters to this as you mention, or they are smart enough to ignore it for the trivial damage that it does. But unless you're up against a fairly smart and coordinated emeny force, your bubble-'n-bomb run is sowing a lot of discord in the enemy ranks. Don't underestimate the value of that disruption, people take their eyes off all sorts of important things to chase that damn Paladin who seems to be getting away with impunity. It's very frustrating for the other side, revel in it. :)
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So in other words all the paladin bashing is just a transferance used by the recieving players to rationalize thier own ineptitude.

Horde player #1 "I'm too much of a "nOOb" to figure out that this paladin doing a bubble and dump on us is wasting his time and it's not hurting us, so instead of adapting and improving my own play i'll just say that all paladins are nOObs for using those tactics."

On the other hand, the majority of paladins that are over 40, that i know, that use the bubble and dump tactic only do it because it's GUARANTEED to get a rise out of the horde forces. I was in a TM raid a week before BG's came out and everytime we came to a stand-off one paladin would run in on on side of their forces bubble and dump and run away. Every time half the horde force would charge after that guy. Meanwhile we had warriors and priests come on the other side and fear bomb the hell out of thier group. 5 hours later and having used this same tactic at least 20+ times it still worked like a charm because the horde just couldn't let that one Pally get away.